Tech cos to become largest employers

BANGALORE: With the expansion of private sector in the country Technology service companies are becoming the largest employment generating companies in India.

The end of second quarter of the current financial year saw that Tata Consultancy Serivces (TCS) cross the 50,000 mark in employment with 53,329 people. TCS, human resource development, global head, S Padmanabhan said, This makes us the largest private sector employer in the country." In employee numbers, the software services giant beat its group company Tata Steel that has employee strength of around 45,000 people, was hitherto the top employer in the country.

Besides, Infosys stands with 46,196 employees and Wipro with 41,911 people. Infosys Technologies CFO, Mohandas Pai, termed this as a watershed year and a great turn for the private sector in the country. He said: This shows the strength of the private sector and that they are more employment-intensive. In fact, no other emerging market in the world has technology companies as the top three employers.

According to Nasscom, IT and IteS services companies currently employ more than a million people. The Indian IT software and services employee base has grown at a cumulative annual growth rate of 23.6 percent from 242,000 in financial year 2001-02 to 697,000 in financial year 2004-05.

The services sector also boasts of another medallion in the form of indirect job creation at 1:1.5 ratio thus adding 75,000 new jobs to the economy for the 50,000 jobs that the tech company has created.